MercMech
by Morrigan the Nightmare Queen
Summary: A Ghost Bear sub-Khan steps out of line by hiring a fleet of mercenary mechs to do the dirty work. When his action is discovered, it's the mercs who must take the consequences- and do you think their loyalties will be unshaken after THAT? Read/Review plea


MercMech  
Author's Note: This is a MechWarrior fic, but in truth I have never directly played the game. I have, however, watched my oft-co-author Shrapnil play it, and have listened to long harangues on the subject as well as read the instructions. Please excuse me if I gaff occasionally.  
Disclaimers: Most of the info and stuff featured here is from MechWarrior, by MicroProse and associates. The mercenary mechwarriors and their mechs are MINE! MINE! MINE! HAHAHAHAHAHA!  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
"Target sighted, ma'am!"  
"Excellent. Deploy Avery and Uziren, circle-strafe on Target B. Leave A and C to myself and Kolder. Once B is destroyed, fall back to Zeta Base and await orders. If I don't come back, Kolder is in command. If neither of us survive, Bandit is. Understood?"  
"Yes ma'am!"  
"Good. Fall out."  
  
Bill Johanssen was bored. His Owens was stuffy and cramped, and he still had nine more miles to patrol. What was worse, his other two pals were spaced too far away from him for good radio communication, and he was stuck in a mech that was lousy for combat. Still, this area had been quiet for weeks and was considered a cushy position.   
*Maybe I can speed up a little,* he thought, shifting inside the tight space. *Get this detail over with a little faster. Maybe even be back in time for evening chow. After all, there's no activity HERE.*   
No sooner had the thought entered his head than two mechs dropped down in front and behind him, looking for a fight, jumpjets fired up and ready. They looked for all the world like Annihilators- but weirdly twisted. They were slimmed down all over, and more streamlined. The four medium pulse lasers on the forearms were gone, replaced with- something. Some kind of ballistic. Johanssen laughed as he turned his mech to flee. *Two Annihilators- souped-up Annihilators, even- against a single Owens? I'll outrun their asses and get a medal!*   
That's when a steel cable shot from one of the mechs, snaring him around the ankle. His mech tumbled heavily to the ground, cracking the viewplate and breaking in at least half a dozen places. The other Annihilator came up to him, crouched down slightly- and fired its jumpjets. Johanssen knew what it was going to do- and couldn't do anything except scream while the mech crashed down upon him. The viewplate broke, and a piece of hard plastic drove itself into his head. He knew no more.  
  
"Three mechs!" General Lombardo raged. His mustache was bristling furiously as he stomped up and down the marbled hallway, glaring from time to time at the five corporals who stood at attention in a neat line. "Two Owens and a *Madcat,* dammit! We can't afford this! And you don't- know- who- DID IT?!"  
Corporal McDonough spoke. "Sir, that is correct. The Ghost Bears do not have mechs which could move fast enough to even catch a running Owens' leg, nor have they ever employed jumpjets as powerful as the ones which were apparently used to destroy Johanssen's mech."  
"What if the Ghost Bears used an Owens, huh?!" Lombardo demanded.  
"Negative, sir. The damage inflicted by the impact speaks of a mech much heavier and more powerful than an Owens. Something along the lines of a Daishi could have done it, maybe."  
"A Daishi. A Great Death. Able to move fast enough to trip a running Owens. What have you been smoking, corporal?"  
"Nothing, sir."  
Lombardo moved along the line. "Corporal Murdock. What's the word on the other Owens, and the Madcat?"  
"Sir, the other Owens appears to have suffered a similar fate, although the tripping was done via use of heavy concussion missiles. The Madcat is- most peculiar sir. It seems that it was first disabled by an EMP burst, and then the pilot was forcibly removed, and . . ."  
"And what?" Lombardo said.  
"And shredded, sir. We still haven't found all the pieces."  
Lombardo grimaced and turned a magnificent cherry-red. "That's it. That's the last straw. We find them and destroy them! Send out five-man patrols of Thors. We'll get those bastards if it's the last thing I do."  
  
Sixty miles east . . .  
Four custom-designed mechs thundered into a hangar bay. Three dozen others, also unique designs, were already there. The pilots were lounging on plastic benches, but they jumped up when the four entered.   
There were two souped-up Annihilator designs, what looked like a cross between a Firefly and a Puma, and a mutant Daishi. All carried the Ghost Bear insignia prominently, but on each one there was also a small, green-and-blue crosshatched design. The design looked something like a tic-tac-toe board, two green lines and two blue, with Latin phrase *Draco dormiens* (Sleeping Dragon) inscribed across it in black.  
The mechs opened up, and the pilots climbed out. The souped-up Annihilators divulged a small, red-headed man (Uziren) and an equally small, blonde woman (Avery). The Firepuma was piloted by a dark-haired man with a glower and the name of Hans Kolder. And when the last mech, the slimmed-down Daishi, opened, all the others snapped a salute.   
Jupiter King had long, dark hair and a commanding attitude. She wore the blue-green-black design in a patch on her left shoulder, and wore a black bodysuit. Everything about her said 'The Big Cheese.' She walked down the row of her subordinate mech pilots, scrutinizing them. Then she spoke to them.  
"I'll make this brief. I know how much you guys hate this place. I hate it too. I hate the Clans, I hate the Inner Sphere, and I hate having to wait around for weeks. I want to get back into space. What do you guys say?"  
There was a roar of agreement.  
"Now as soon as we collect the cash for this job, we're cutting out. Maybe take some R & R on some tropical planet. Sound good? Anyone who doesn't like my plan can cut out and go where they want, and we'll all rendezvous on space station Gamma Minor in one standard month."  
The pilots nudged each other and grinned. This was a *lot* better than the military.  
"Pack your mechs and be ready to leave in two hours. When I get back, we'll pass around the cash and then get the fuck outta here. Move!"  
The pilots scrambled to pack the cargo compartments of their mechs, while Jupiter and Kolder went to see their Ghost Bear superior.  
"Missions accomplished," Jupiter said to the man. "Pay up."  
"Pay?" the man sounded faintly amused. "Why would I pay?"  
"That's what you do when you hire a mercenary fleet!" Jupiter snapped. Kolder tensed, sensing a fight. "We had an agreement, buddy. For 30 days of intensive mech-annihilation missions, our rate is 750,000 dataries. That's pretty cheap, considering that you Ghost Bears aren't even supposed to hire mercenaries and we've been working under extreme circumstances and top secrecy."  
The Clan Leader jumped. "Seven hundred and fifty thousand? That's outrageous!"  
"Why?" she replied. "You count your dataries in the trillions, and we delivered what we were asked to do. We destroyed 319 Inner Sphere mechs in a one-month period, and I have forty people to pay, feed, clothe, and equip. 750,000 is pretty low, considering that you Ghost Bears aren't even supposed to hire mercenaries and we've been working under extreme circumstances and top secrecy."  
"I'll pay," the man replied. "I'll-" his words were cut off by gunshots, and the door slammed open. There stood the Ghost Bear Khan, and he was obviously displeased with his subordinate.  
"YOU!" the Khan thundered, striding forward. "You're the one! The one who hired the mercenaries!" Completely disregarding Jupiter and Kolder, he picked up the man by the collar and shook him. "You realize, of course, that such a dishonorable action merits DEATH. But first- there's the matter of the hired killers to attend to."  
Turning, the Khan drew out his sidearm and fired at Jupiter. Trying to duck, she fell sideways and was only grazed by the shot- the knife she threw, however, was much more accurate. It landed in Khan's shoulder. He clutched at the wound as the pair sped out of the room and ran to the mech hangar.  
"Get into your mechs!" Jupiter yelled as she dashed in. "The Khan's found out we were hired, and there's gonna be hell to pay!" All the pilots jammed the rest of their equipment into the cargo compartments and clambered into their mechanical battlesuits.   
Jupiter was last- she made sure everyone else was ready before nimbly climbing up the side of her slimmed-down Daishi, which was aptly named *The Justificator.*  
Silently, the mercenaries watched as fifty Black Hawks piled into the hangar. Jupiter keyed her comm system. "Xander. Avery. LeDucke. Kolder. Anders. Uziren. Jameson. Front line, with me. We're going to smack these bastards into next Tuesday." The seven mechs joined her, signaling acknowledgment. They knew the code that their leader used, and powered up the projectors they all carried.  
The first ten Black Hawks were powering up, too- for an Alpha Strike. That could easily take out 25% of the mercenaries; and Jupiter wasn't going to let that happen. "Steady . . . steady . . ." she whispered into the comm. Then, as the mechs leveled their lasers to attack- "FIRE!"  
A stream of red energy blew out of the eight mercenary mechs, striking the enemy. Tendrils of lightning flickered over the surface of the enemy mechs, and for a moment all was still. Then the ten Black Hawks gave an almighty groan and exploded violently, showering sparks and shrapnel everywhere. Jupiter grinned inside her own mech. They had nicknamed that weapon the Omega Ray, because it- well, to make a whole ton of techno-jargon short, it caused energy weapons to backfire and massively overload their wielders.  
Taking advantage of the situation, the mercenaries charged, firing all the weaponry they had. Most of it was the standard- lasers, particle cannons, missiles, etc. But there was some stuff that the Black Hawks had never even thought about using; EMP bursts, grappling cables and hooks, and high-tech paintbombs. (Perhaps paint-*rockets* would be a better name, for these not only covered the canopy of the opposing mech with fast-drying radioactive paint, but were also computer-guided to their targets.)  
When the dust settled, twenty-three Black Hawks would fight no more. But though their losses were miniscule in comparison, the mercs had been hurt too- Anders, LeDucke, Jameson, Xander, and Kolder would rise no more. But as Jupiter examined the corpses, she met the one that pained her the most- Avery. She had never told anyone, but Raella Avery was her once-married younger sister. Her death hurt. And Jupiter was sincerely pissed off. Their mechs were repairable, however. Just barely, but they could be fixed. All the pilots had been killed by straight shots to the faceplate.  
"Someone put a remote control unit on those mechs," she called. "There's only one thing left to do."  
"What's that?" Bandit, her new second-in-command, asked.  
"We're going to turn those six mechs over to Inner Sphere. And we are going to kill those Ghost Bear bastards, who couldn't respect an honest mercenary."  
  
A/N: I know the last line is a bit oxymoronic, but that's drama for you! Hey . . . should I write more?  
  



End file.
